English Pronunciation – a Poem

I found this on Tickld and just had to share! According to the original post, if you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. And, after trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labor to reading six lines aloud…

This Greek gave up somewhere along two thirds into it 🙂

Update: In a fascinating display of her sleuth skills, Angela of the Hedgeblog Times found out that it was written by Gerard Nolst Trenité in 1922. Its proper title is “The Chaos.” She even unearthed a video of a poor soul reading the thing in its entirety!

Wow, that’s something else! I tried to read the whole thing aloud, bearing in mind that I’m French so although I’m bilingual I still occasionally stumble on the pronunciation of certain words. That was quite challenge! English is a really crazy language when you stop and think of it. I’d hate to have to learn it as an adult.

It may be more difficult to spell but not to comprehend. Saw this in the Times a couple of days ago. There is a ‘Headline’ collection going on and this was one reporting a collision between a WH Smith’s delivery van and a car ‘Stationary van hits stationary car’ !

I am pleased to hear that you recognise (no Z) American as a different language, because it truly is. It is no more English than French is English, and should be celebrated as a different tongue. Here is my own take on the matter.https://beetleypete.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/americanese/
I hope that you are having a happy life in Thailand.
Best wishes, Pete.

Nicholas, I took the read it straight through challenge. You know, the author had fun with unrelated words, and rhyme placement. No look-up on those unknown. A first for me. I’d rather re-read, Runaway Smile, my favorite kids’ book on the shelf. The book is incredible! Buy it people ! Christine

Ow my, ow my! I need to spend some time with a lexicon and a notebook to learn the pronunciation and meaning of quite a few words. Fascinating though that someone thought to put all those words into a poem! Few of our Greek words made it to the poem. Why do the English have to take the perfectly written and spelled lexeis and twist them in their mouth to sound nothing like the perfectly clean and crisp words they are?

Thanks Nicholas for the most unusual posts.
I will copy and paste in my blog.
Re-blogging does not work for me…or doing it wrong 🙂

When I was in college learning to be a teacher they offered this thought in order to explain how difficult it might be to teach kids how to spell. FISH, they said, could be spelled GHOTI, based on other English words. GH, pronounced as in tough, O pronounced as in WOMAN, and TI, pronounced as in VACATION. Yes, it’s hard!

That’s a long one. I’ll admit that I stopped because I have to get a few things done, so I don’t know if my two ‘favorite’ English words are on here. Bologna (pronounced Baloney) and Colonel (pronounced Kernel). I really wonder what drunken linguist made those two up. Also, things get even stranger when you take regional dialects and accents into account. I still don’t know some of the words my wife uses and we’re only from opposite sides of New York.

If that doesn’t work, just say where you’re originally from and most Americans will explain things. Especially in the South. 🙂 Downside is that you have to hear a little sucking up. Being a New Yorker in Florida led to a lot of ‘I always wanted to see the Empire State Building’ and ‘I was in NYC once. Maybe we passed each other’.

I wonder if we all do stuff like that to help put the other person at ease. Now is that better or worse than someone saying ‘You’re Greek? I loved the Percy Jackson series.’ I actually heard someone say this to the owner of a Greek restaurant.

To be fair, I’ve seen and heard worse. Imagine trying to explain to someone that the pocket bread is spelled ‘Pita’ and not ‘Peeta’. Or at least being there to see the exchange. This wasn’t at a restaurant or with anyone from Greece, so I don’t know if it counts. (I’m not even 100% Pita is originally from Greece. Should probably look that up.)

I took a deep breath, then managed to read the whole thing (in my head) without a mistake! I should be able to, let’s face it. It does show so many of the idiosyncrasies of our language. As you rightly say, many native speakers would struggle with much of this, if they are not used to writing regularly.
Most enjoyable. Thanks Nicholas.
Best wishes, Pete.

The piece is well and cleverly written, and I enjoy that kind of writing, but it’s often co-opted by appended scientific-sounding assertions that cannot be verified. More folks would find themselves in the privileged percentage if they knew that breath control, and varying pitch, pace and emphasis, is how to read aloud such exercises in enunciation, with little or no stumbling to mar the performance.

Lol – this poem had me in stitches, but I guess that’s what you get with a language that has been influenced by so many any other languages. It has to be remembered that England was invaded a number of times by Romans, Danes, Angles, Saxons, and Normans – no wonder the English language is so horrendous to learn!!!!

Never was there a better illustration of why English is so flexible, and hellish for a foreigner to master! It reminds me of an apocryphal joke of the student who thought, after months of study, he was beginning to crack it until he read a billboard which said ‘Cavalcade pronounced success’ and went home and shot himself!

Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Try this from Nicholas Rossis especially those of you who enjoyed the tongue twisters last week.. this beats those into a cocked hat as they say in my neck of the woods…

Gosh! And I thought Irish was an unreasonable and difficult, illogical language,,but I see now that English is far worse! At least the strange spellings in Irish are an indication of the pronunciation… A very clever poem, I wonder who wrote it?

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